Our 21st century children live in a time of global interaction that
impacts their books, movies, toys, and television programming. They view
images of children living in third-world or industrialized nations,
share books written in more than one language or translated from another
culture, and play with toys designed for the world's children.
Since they are aware of how others in the world live, should our schools
and educational systems ignore what is happening beyond our state and
national borders? Shouldn't we become more informed about
innovations and international perspectives so that we can access the
best ideas and question practices that are less than ideal? In addition,
we need to anticipate our changing school population's backgrounds
and educational needs.

This issue contains a wealth of studies that present innovative
practices and question our assumptions about bilingualism, parent
programs, and teaching. Usually when we seek solutions for enhancing
children's academic performance, we anticipate that these answers
must entail complicated strategies or technology that we currently lack.
Perhaps the best solutions are more straightforward than we think they
will be. Instead, we decide to adopt whole curricula or approaches
without considering the culture or the context for which these were
designed. We assume that what works in one country may be equally
effective in another and fail to examine the philosophical or
theoretical foundations that provided the basis for this particular
program. Within this issue, readers will discover thoughtful
examinations of bilingualism and acculturation along with the impact of
parent and homework programs. You may be surprised by what you learn
from each of the nine articles.

Educators, policymakers, and parents become alarmed whenever they
read about international comparisons of American children's
mathematics performance with children in other developed countries. Each
time American children rank lower than those from Europe and Asia, we
question how mathematics is being taught in public schools and wonder
how we can improve children's performance. In seeking ways to
increase children's performance, we need to clarify what we really
want. Do we wish to change children's test-taking abilities or
actually improve their understanding of mathematics? If we value
children's understanding of mathematics, then we need to
investigate how this might be accomplished within a classroom context.
The study presented in this article shows how a computer software
program, Chartworld, enables teachers to provide opportunities for
children to build their mathematical reasoning through both independent
exploration and teacher-guided discussions and demonstrations. Ploger
and Hecht designed a fully randomized, experimental study of
3rd-graders' mathematical knowledge of multiplication, division,
and prime numbers.

This study builds upon a theoretical framework of an
information-processing model of mathematics skills. As children explore
Chartworld, they are afforded opportunities to increase their conceptual
awareness of numbers, mathematical symbols, and number operations. With
the Chartworld software, children can create colorful models to form
interesting patterns. Each exploration and teacher-guided discussion
enables children to see how multiples of a number relate to one another.
There were two experiments using Chartworld to test its effectiveness on
children's conceptual and procedural knowledge--Experiment 1
focused on multiplication and division and Experiment 2 on prime and
composite numbers. Experiment 1's subjects included 196
third-graders; 48% were boys and 59.4% were from minority groups
(African American, Hispanic, and Asian) who were randomly assigned to
either the control group (textbook only) or the experimental group
(Chartworld plus textbook). Subjects were pretested and posttested using
a written test and a structured interview, then each group received
eight 30-minute lessons on multiplication and division. The Chartworld
group's time included learning how to use this software program
along with the teacher-directed exploration of the mathematical topics.
Experiment 2's subjects included 187 third-grade children randomly
assigned to either the Chartworld experimental group (107 students) or
the control group (80). Subjects were pre- and posttested using a
written test and a structured interview. Then both groups received six
45-minute lessons on prime and composite numbers; however, the
Chartworld group's instructional time included learning how to use
the software program. It should be noted that the topics of prime and
composite numbers are usually taught in 4th grade.

Experiment 1's data from the written tests and the structured
interviews were analyzed using ANCOVAs to control for any pretest
differences. The results showed greater gains for the Chartworld group,
with moderate effect sizes. Likewise, Experiment 2's data, analyzed
using ANCOVAs, showed greater gains for the Chartworld group, with
moderate effect sizes. It should be noted that children demonstrated
their mathematical understanding by solving word problems, not simply
solving equations. Thus, both experiments demonstrate the effectiveness
of the Chartworld software in enhancing student learning of essential
mathematical concepts.

What are the implications for educators? First, Ploger and Hecht
note that the teacher's role is crucial to Chartworld's
success. Although there is value in allowing children to experiment and
play with the software, by itself exploration does not support learning
concepts. It was through the teacher's guided inquiry that children
not only learn WHAT but also WHY these mathematical relationships exist.
It is unlikely that the children would develop understanding of the
commutative properties of multiplication by simply clicking the mouse to
make patterns of stripes. Second, this study demonstrates the value of
software that appeals to children's curiosity while providing
visual demonstrations of relationships. Third, teachers must be careful
observers of children's spontaneous explorations to build richer,
deeper understandings of concepts through guided discovery. Thus,
Chartworld software affords opportunities to learn multiple concepts,
but without a knowledgeable teacher to allow free exploration and
guidance, it's just a series of pretty patterns!

Predictors of Immigrant Children's School Achievement: A
Comparative Study--Moon, Kang, & An

The United States is, and probably always will be, a nation of
immigrants. Since the beginning, we depended on immigrants to build our
infrastructure--the Erie Canal, transcontinental railroad, subways,
bridges, and highways. Immigrants support agriculture, design buildings,
and provide technological innovations. We also recognize that some
groups of immigrants succeed academically and acculturate more readily
than others, and these are the immigrants who become America's
competitive workforce. Then there are the others who fail to learn
English, finish high school, or develop the requisite skills for jobs
above the minimum wage. Can we afford to let one group consistently
succeed while the other fails? Isn't it time that we learned about
our two largest groups of immigrants, Asians and Hispanics, and
investigated both the predictors for their success as well as possible
interventions? To learn more about these two groups, Moon, Kang, and An
studied predictors of achievement for kindergartners who are at the
beginning of their schooling, rather than students graduating high
school.

Previous researchers identified several variables that impact
immigrant students' achievement, particularly language difficulties
and cultural differences, while others highlighted the influences of
differences in socioeconomic status, levels of parental involvement, and
home environment. Adding to this body of knowledge, Moon, Kang, and
An's study investigated seven parenting variables as predictors of
their children's school achievement in order to determine the most
powerful predictors, as well as to identify differences in predictors
for Korean and Mexican children. These independent parenting variables
included acculturation, parents' school involvement, parenting
style, parents' English fluency, family income, and length of stay
in the United States. The dependent variable, children's school
achievement, was measured by their recent grades in English,
mathematics, and science.

The researchers recruited their participants from churches, Korean
language institutes, Korean community centers, Mexican churches, and
Mexican community centers. These participants included a purposive
sample of 103 Korean American parents of young children (Grades 13)
living in the Dallas Fort Worth area; most of the group (68% was female.
The Mexican American sample comprised 100 parents, of whom 82% were
female. Data were obtained from four sources: 1) a demographic
questionnaire, which provided information on family income, levels of
English proficiency, years of residency in the United States, education,
and employment status; 2) the Short Acculturation Scale (SAS), a 12-item
multiple choice questionnaire tapping language use and ethnic loyalty,
media, and ethnic social relations, resulting in a score of I for low
acculturation to 5 for high acculturation; 3) parent school involvement
scale, consisting of 11 items drawn from preexisting scales, with
parents rating each item as 1 (never) to 4 (often); and 4) Parenting
Style and Dimensions Questionnaire (PSDQ), a 32-item scale with parents
rating items as 1 (never) to 5 (always).

Data analysis from the demographic questionnaire revealed higher
levels of education and family income for the Korean parents. Korean
children's achievement was significantly higher than that of the
Mexican children. Results from the demographic questionnaire, the SAS,
and PSDQ for both Korean and Mexican samples showed significant
correlations for parents' English fluency, acculturation, and
parenting style to their children's school achievement. Analysis of
the parent school involvement scale data found higher levels for the
Mexican parents. Both Mexican parents' length of stay in the United
States and parents' school involvement were significantly
correlated with children's school achievement. Stepwise regression
analysis identified four significant variables--acculturation, parenting
style, parent education, and length of stay in the United States as the
best combination for predicting children's school achievement. When
each group was analyzed separately, the best combination of predictors
for Korean children's achievement included acculturation, parenting
style, and family income; while for the Mexican children, the best
predictors were length of stay in the United States and parent
education.

What are the implications of these results for educators? First,
the research findings show that the relationship between acculturation
and student achievement may be more complex than currently understood
and possibly mediated by cultural differences in values and goal
setting. Second, while authoritative and authoritarian parenting styles
are usually associated with higher achievement, this may not be true of
all cultures, and may even be mediated by socioeconomic status. Parents
from higher socioeconomic groups not only may espouse higher aspirations
and goals for their children, but they also possess the resources to
support their children's learning through tutoring and the
parents' own ability to assist with schoolwork at home. Third,
educators should note that levels of parent involvement in schooling did
not lead to higher student achievement. It should be noted that the
Korean children had higher levels of achievement, but their parents had
lower levels of school involvement than the Mexican group. Yet, their
teachers assume that parents who are not involved in school activities
are not really interested in their children's education. This is a
misconception that must be addressed. Fourth, the role of immigrant
fathers in children's academic success was not investigated in this
study and certainly warrants further investigation. Finally, parent
education programs need a complete redesign to accommodate differences
in languages, parenting styles, skills, education levels, and social
networking. The current parent education model, based on middle class,
American parenting, is not the "one size fits all" model that
will work with immigrant families. Instead, these programs must be
designed to serve and support the families in systematic, culturally
appropriate ways.

Biliteracy and Bilingual Development in a Second-Generation Korean
Child: A Case Study--Ro & Cheatham

In the United States, bilingualism is neither universally valued
nor promoted as it is in other developed countries. However, this
perception may change in light of the prediction that 40% of the future
U.S. school-age population will speak a language other than English.
Previous research has shown that these children lose their home
language, especially when they are completing schooling in an
English-only environment. Among current immigrants, Koreans are one of
the largest groups and this population relies on heritage language
schools as a means of maintaining their children's fluency in the
home language. Given these resources, as well as those available in
children's homes, how are the children's bilingualism and
biliteracy impacted? Ro and Cheatham have conducted a six-year
qualitiative study of second-generation Korean children; in this
article, the authors present a case study of one boy across his
4th-grade year.

Building upon previous research on code-switching, home literacy,
and language environments, as well as the loss of the heritage (home)
language, Ro and Cheatham sought the answers to three questions: 1)
identify the child's and his parents' linguistic goals; 2)
reveal the factors impacting the child's bilingualism and
biliteracy; and 3) trace the child's progress in Korean oral
language. The setting for this study was a primarily white Midwestern
university city with a high percentage of Korean international students.
Within this city, there was a Korean cultural center, a Korean heritage
language school, and several Korean churches, all of which, taken
collectively, afforded multiple opportunities to use the language, both
spoken and written. The case study child resided with his parents and
two younger siblings in a middle to higher SES neighborhood made up of
mostly whites and the child attended an English-only public school in
this community. Both parents held university degrees, were bilingual in
Korean and English, and used both languages at home. Resources within
the home included books and videos in English and Korean, along with
frequent opportunities to communicate with family members in Korea
through telephone calls and letters. Data sources for this ethnographic
study included written documentation of oral language and literacy
behaviors, interviews, and participant observation. It should be noted
that the first author was the child's teacher at the Korean
heritage language school and was acquainted with the family.

Data analysis uncovered two themes: 1) the parents' values on
Korean and English and their roles in supporting their child's
facility in both languages; and 2) the child's perspective and
attitudes toward both languages. Both parents placed high value on their
son's maintaining and expanding his knowledge of Korean. Thus, they
had not only supplied their son with many literacy events and materials
for both Korean and English, but also had hired a biweekly Korean tutor
and sent him to the Korean heritage school. However, the parents were
unable to counter their son's shift to using English only, and
eventually seemed to give up speaking to him in Korean at home, while
continuing to speak Korean to their two younger children. They began to
rely more on the tutoring and heritage school to support their
son's Korean language and literacy, essentially relegating that
responsibility to his Korean teachers and tutor. While the child
initially used and liked both languages in kindergarten, as he
progressed in his English-only school, he began to prefer English and
began to feel ashamed of his family's speaking Korean. The child
also felt that English was the easier of the two languages to speak,
read, and write. Over time, his attitude toward Korean literacy and
language was considerably less positive than that for English. Through
tutoring the child's Korean literacy skills increased, but they
were not at a level commensurate with those of native Korean children.
His oral language proficiency in Korean also decreased over time.

As we can surmise from these results, children's bilingualism
and biliteracy can be stalled or averted by English-only schooling. This
finding is counterintuitive for many educators, who might think that
children from families (like the one portrayed in this study)--families
with greater financial and sociocultural resources--would be better able
to support their children's bilingualism and biliteracy than those
families who only speak the home language and who have fewer resources.
In the United States, where English language and literacy are valued,
and in some states mandated over other languages, this overwhelming
amount of exposure to the English language throughout schooling cannot
be matched by the opportunities outside of schooling to maintain,
expand, and develop oral language and literacy in the home language.
Thus, our English-only schooling not only overrides families'
values, but also motivates children to become more proficient in
English. In effect, we are robbing children of their individual heritage
and identity by discounting and undermining their home language.

Early childhood educators and researchers have recognized the
impact of parents' involvement, levels of interaction, and
attitudes on their children's cognitive, linguistic, social, and
emotional development. Therefore, most intervention programs, such as
Early Head Start, Head Start, and Title I, have mandated parent
participation and education as part of their design as well as their
federal funding. Each local project]program is responsible for designing
appropriate parent involvement to meet the needs of an individual
community's culture and context. Previous research on Head
Start's effectiveness has focused more on the outcomes for the
children being served by these programs than on the effects on
parents' skills and behaviors. This study was intended to address
this oversight by examining the longitudinal effects of Early Head Start
parenting programs on both parents' behaviors from different ethnic
and linguistic backgrounds and on their children's subsequent
cognitive development.

Using data from the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation
cross-national study of 17 sites during the period of 1996-2001, Chang,
Park, Singh, and Sung assessed three types of parental
involvement--parenting classes, group socialization, and support group
meetings--and their effects on both parenting behavior and their
children's cognitive development scores from birth to age 3. In the
sample were four ethnic and language groups: 1) an English-speaking
reference group made up primarily of whites; 2) the English-speaking
African American group; 3) the English-speaking Hispanic group; and 4)
the non English-speaking Hispanic group. Groups 2-4 were compared to
Group 1, the reference group. Data sources included parent interviews
conducted at three intervals--6, 15, and 26 months--after enrollment in
the programs to determine the frequency of parent participation in
parenting classes, group socialization, or parent support groups.
Additional data on parent behaviors were obtained from home observations
of parental linguistic and cognitive stimulation and from video
recordings of parental cognitive stimulation, parental supportiveness,
detachment, and intrusiveness. A 14-point scale was used for parental
linguistic and cognitive stimulation and a seven-point scale was used to
score the three parenting measures on the videotapes. Children's
cognitive development was evaluated using the Bayley MDI scores at 14,
24, and 36 months of age.

The results showed differences in the degree of impact of each type
of parent intervention programs on the various ethnic and language
groups' parenting behaviors. Both the parenting classes and group
socialization were effective for all four groups in increasing
parents' linguistic and cognitive stimulation at home. However, the
African American mothers participating in parent intervention and group
socialization exhibited fewer detachment behaviors and higher levels of
at-home cognitive and linguistic stimulation than the mothers in the
reference group (who were mostly white). Parent support groups were
effective in increasing participants' levels of supportiveness
while decreasing intrusiveness. For non-English speaking Hispanic
mothers who began with higher levels of parental intrusiveness than the
reference group, this change was remarkable, as they began to increase
their levels of participation in their children's education.
Finally, the results showed that parents' linguistic and cognitive
stimulation developed through changes in parenting behaviors had
significant effects on their children's Bayley MDI scores.

A study such as this one should encourage program evaluators and
developers to attend to components that support and develop positive
parenting behaviors, rather than focusing solely on what happens within
the early childhood center or school. Along with acknowledging such
demographic variables as parents' education, race, income, and
language spoken in the home, program evaluators need to consider and
plan ways to address parenting behaviors such as stimulation,
supportiveness, detachment, and intrusiveness. If we truly believe that
parents are not only their children's first teachers, but also our
partners in education, then we must equip them with the knowledge,
skills, and support to fully participate in their children's
education.

Elementary Organizational Structures and Young Adolescents'
Self-Concept and Classroom Environment Perceptions Across the Transition
to Middle School--Parker

It seems as though the phenomenon of "getting children
ready" for the next level of schooling will not die quietly. We
wish we could focus our attention on the children we are teaching rather
than on anticipating the expectations of the next institution's
teachers. Yet, preschool teachers are charged with getting children
ready for kindergarten while elementary teachers must prepare students
for middle school. Is there any proof that planning these transitions
actually works? Since many researchers have suggested that the
transition to middle school can be the most challenging, Parker's
study sought to compare students' self-concept and perceptions of
classroom climate as each group emerged from two elementary schools with
differing organizational structures to enter the same middle school.

Adolescence is a time of changes--academically, motivationally, and
emotionally along with the surprising (and sometimes horrific) physical
metamorphosis. Developmentally appropriate middle schools were supposed
to be designed with these very changes taken into account and to do a
better job of educating young adolescents than junior high schools. For
some districts, the developmentally appropriate middle school does not
exist, but in others all of the components--interdisciplinary teams,
integrated curriculum, and instructional strategies that capitalize on
students' socialization--are clearly evident. Parker's study
includes a sample of 125 fifth-grade students from two elementary
schools, one of which was departmentalized (different teachers for each
content area) and the other self-contained (same teacher for all
subjects). The data source for students' self-concept included the
Piers-Harris Self-Concept Scale, which included subscales for rating
self-concept across physical appearance, popularity, happiness, anxiety,
and intellectual/school status. For students' perceptions of
classroom environment, the Modified Classroom Climate Instrument, a
25-item survey, was administered and subjects rated their responses on a
Likert scale on items assessing personalization, participation,
independence, investigation, and differentiation. Subjects responded to
both instruments twice--in May of their 5th-grade year and October of
6th grade.

Results at the end of 5th grade showed one difference for
self-concept--the students in the departmentalized school rated
themselves higher on physical appearance--and one difference in
independence in favor of the self-contained school's students.
Results for the 6th-grade data showed the effect of time on
students' self-concept in the form of higher ratings on appearance,
popularity, and intellectual/school status, along with lower levels of
anxiety. For the classroom climate variables in 6th grade, there were
significantly higher ratings of participation and investigation. When
the data from each elementary school were analyzed separately, there was
a significant difference for independence, with the departmentalized
students' ratings increasing while the self-contained
students' ratings declined.

Some readers may be surprised by these findings that
adolescents' self-concept ratings increased while levels of anxiety
decreased upon entering middle school. Although this study is limited by
its sample, it does raise some questions worth considering. First, did
entering a developmentally appropriate middle school promote a smoother
transition for these students? Second, did this district's
extensive transition program for middle school enhance students'
adjustment and self-concepts? Perhaps being familiar with the school
building, teachers, schedule, and policies beforehand enabled the
students to feel more confident and less anxious about their new school.
Third, should districts reconsider the departmentalized elementary
school as the solution to "getting ready for middle school"?
It would seem that if these questions were investigated on a larger
scale, we might finally be able to eliminate school organizational plans
that only make sense to adults, but do nothing to enhance the
educational experiences of the children they are supposed to serve.

Children and young adolescents are bombarded by cultural and social
images through programs and advertisements on television and the
Internet, as well as by the messages in music, video games, and
magazines. Images of the ideal female and male body types and
appropriate gender behavior communicate values and standards that alarm
many parents, teachers, and politicians. As a result, children's
advocates have focused more on what is being seen and heard on our
airwaves and lobbied for legislation to address electronic media. Yet,
little attention has been paid to the impact and influences of the print
media, particularly the popular magazines that young adolescents
regularly read. Grounded in prior research on adolescent media
experiences and self-concept, Bosacki, Elliott, Bajovic, and
Akseer's investigation focused their longitudinal study on
adolescents' magazine preferences and reading habits and the
subsequent impact on their self-concept, particularly adolescents'
self-descriptions.

This Canadian study, conducted over three years, aimed to describe
the relationships between adolescents' preferences for particular
popular magazines and their self-descriptions as well as to determine
differences according to age and gender. As part of a larger study of 5-
to 13-year-olds' media preferences and habits, the researchers
focused on 223 participants from grades 6 through 8, drawn from 14
elementary schools serving various socioeconomic and ethnic populations.
Most of the children spoke English as their main language. Data sources
included the parts of the Media Self-Report Questionnaire (a 22-page,
paper and pencil instrument used in the larger study) related to
self-concept, magazine reading, and preferences. For example, one
question directed children to "list five things to describe
themselves." First, two researchers independently coded the data,
then frequency counts for grades and gender were tallied.

Across the three years of the study, boys' self-descriptions
were consistent, using "cool" and "athletic" every
year along with "smart" and "funny," while
girls' descriptors became more diverse. Girls described themselves
as "funny," "smart," "nice," and
"friendly." Surprisingly, descriptors for physical appearance
were not used by any of the participants. Gender differences in terms of
magazine preferences were found, with girls reading magazines about
fashion, celebrities, or entertainment (Teen People, Seventeen) while
boys read about sports and video games (e.g., Sports Illustrated).
Across the three years of the study, girls not only read a greater
number of magazines, but did so with greater frequency than boys.
However, magazine reading for both genders increased across time.

What can we learn from these results? First, it is surprising that
the young adolescents read more magazines than we thought they did, and
this should please educators and parents who wonder whether or not this
age group reads for pleasure at all. Second, their self-descriptions did
not reflect our preconceived notions that they would see themselves in
terms of their physical attributes, rather than their social or
emotional traits. Third, this finding is remarkable, given that most of
the magazines regularly read and preferred by the girls featured thin,
buxom models, while the boys' magazines portrayed athletic,
muscular models. Thus, for this study's participants, magazines had
little effect on self-definition, contradicting other researchers'
findings. Future studies should explore questions about not only the
messages children and young adolescents identify from print and
electronic media, but also the impact of these messages on their
subsequent gender roles, identification, and expectations. Therefore, we
may need to attend more closely to developing media literacy at school
and at home so that students will be able to interpret, recognize, and
refute the information and images aimed their way.

Making Sense of Competing Contructs of Teacher as
Professional--Sisson

In today's era of high-stakes testing, curriculum standards,
and educational mandates, teachers struggle to maintain their
professional beliefs, stature, and decision-making. These struggles can
intensify as teachers attempt to implement programs designed and
intended for cultures outside their own. When the Reggio Emilia schools
began, their philosophy, approach, and curriculum arose from the Italian
community of teachers and parents with shared beliefs, culture, and
vision. Thus, the Reggio Emilia schools represented a common set of
understandings and aspirations for the young children being served. As
appealing as the Reggio Emilia approach has been to educators in the
United States and other countries, its implementation brings a set of
contradictions, issues, and problems that many neither recognized nor
anticipated. Obstacles to one of the approach's goals, the teacher
viewed as a professional, becomes evident when parents do not understand
the Reggio Emilia philosophy and when the teachers' and
parents' beliefs about schooling differ. While previous research on
implementing this approach have focused on ways to adopt it to the
American setting, the study presented in this article shows
teachers' struggles with the philosophy and their relationships
with parents.

Sisson's descriptive study focused on eight teachers
transitioning from the American image of early childhood teachers,
defined by standards and accountability, to the Reggio Emilia view as
the trusted professional. Thus, this comparative case study shows how
teachers negotiate between these two competing images of the teacher as
professional in two sites; one (a university-affiliated program) was
considered to be a model Reggio Emilia program and the second was a site
with Reggio-inspired teachers. The teachers at the first site had
visited and studied the schools in Italy, participated in a study group,
and were engaged in research projects along with parents, children, and
student teachers. The teachers at the second site had not visited the
schools in Italy, but were members of a Reggio study group in their
community. Classroom participant observations, videotaped, one-hour
group interviews at each site, and artifacts (parent literature,
newsletters, documentation of children's learning) supplied by
participants constituted the three data sources for this study.
Qualitative analysis of the data sources was conducted to identify
themes.

The findings suggest that these teachers were attracted to the
Reggio Emilia approach because of its image of the teacher as
professional, which coincides with previous research. These participants
noted that as they sought to be perceived by parents as the trusted
professional, this notion was challenged by parents' views of the
teachers more as service providers than as knowledgeable professionals.
This view caused the teachers to try to prove that the children were
learning by providing documentation to the parents who were demanding
accountability. This requirement to document children's progress
caused teachers to negotiate between their own views of professionalism
and the American and the Reggio Emilia perspectives. Participants used
parent education as a means to increase parents' understanding of
the Reggio Emilia approach, hoping to begin a shared vision of schooling
while overcoming parents' preconceived notions of children's
learning.

Many researchers and educators will find the power struggles
portrayed in this study interesting and enlightening. What the teachers
understood and valued about the Reggio Emilia approach was not shared by
the parents. Not only were there differing levels of knowledge and
beliefs for teachers and parents, but also conflicting expectations and
shared values of early schooling. This dynamic was further complicated
by adopting a program not designed for American schools and culture.
What the teachers were just beginning to fully understand about becoming
Reggio Emilia teachers, the parents did not comprehend at all. For
parents, both centers were places where their children received care
while the parents worked or were otherwise occupied. The parents did not
select these centers based on their understanding or belief in Reggio
Emilia schools. In the United States, we have sought to elevate the
status of teaching as a profession through adopting standards,
certification examinations, accreditation, and even national licensing.
None of these efforts have changed the public's perceptions of
teachers above that of technicians, nor have parents elevated early
childhood teachers to a level above a service provider. This study
proposes that parent education may be an effective way to change this
perception of teachers, and future studies should explore this idea
further. Additional investigations should explore how teachers work
toward becoming a true profession, redefining and broadening their role
in educational research and policy.

As the previous study shows, adapting programs or curriculum
standards designed for one country or culture may not be effective in
another. Developmentally appropriate practices (DAP), an approach
proposed and originally designed for U.S. schools, espoused a
constructivist philosophy that inspired and influenced some teachers
while confusing others. Since teachers are the ones who interpret and
implement DAP, how they apply these practices is influenced by their
beliefs, culture, and classroom contexts. Initially, classroom practices
were categorized as either DAP or DIP (developmentally inappropriate
practices), but this dichotomy is inconsistently applied and interpreted
across classrooms and countries. What may be considered DAP in one
classroom or culture would be DIP in another. Herein lies the problem
that Hegde and Cassidy chose to investigate. Their study takes a closer
look at how teachers in India interpret and apply DAP in their
classrooms.

Indian early childhood education differs from that in the United
States in several ways--funding (national government), the types of care
(custodial child care or preschool), teacher education (diploma programs
for bachelor's degree holders), and class size (50-75 children per
room). Thus, the contexts for Indian teachers implementing DAP are
considerably different from those for which DAP was intended in the
United States. This study provides the forum for teachers to articulate
their concerns and opinions about implementing DAP in the large city of
Mumbai. The sample included 12 teachers from lower (4-year-olds) and
upper kindergarten (5-year-olds), representing each of the four zones in
Mumbai. All of the teachers spoke, read, and wrote in English and their
schools were English medium schools. All of the teachers completed a
one-year diploma course in early childhood and all but one had
bachelor's degrees in other fields. The primary data source was a
researcher-constructed interview composed of 9 open-ended questions
regarding schedules, meeting children's needs, planning, and
child-centered and play-based curriculum. It is important to note that
the questions did not use the term DAP or ask directly about
teachers' perceptions of DAP. Teachers' interview responses
were audiotaped and later transcribed.

Qualitative data analysis identified six themes: 1) child-centered
vs teacher-directed, 2) importance of worksheets, 3) group activities
for socialization, 4) issues with implementing play, 5) need for change
in early childhood education, and 6) teachers' beliefs vs
practices. It was dismaying to learn that some classrooms allowed almost
no free play at all, but this is also understandable, given the large
class sizes. It was interesting to note that only two teachers did not
value worksheets; most felt that these provided evidence and evaluation
of children's learning that was useful to teachers and expected by
the parents. Teachers valued group activities not only for their
socialization, but also as a means to train children to wait their turn.
In terms of play, teachers identified a number of barriers, including
parents' beliefs, number of children per class, and a lack of toys
and equipment. Among the areas where teachers expressed a desire for
change in early childhood education were their recognition as
professionals, salaries, and improved, ongoing teacher training.
Finally, teachers outlined their struggles with implementing
developmentally appropriate practices that support children's
learning and the realities of teaching large numbers of children.

Not only have the ideals and intentions of DAP been debated within
the United States, this study shows that DAP is called into question
around the world. Just as it is difficult for U.S. schools to truly
adopt the Reggio Emilia approach because it was not designed for our
culture, DAP may actually be DIP in other cultures with different
values, numbers of children per classroom, and parents'
expectations. It should be noted that the teachers in this study were
attempting to incorporate practices that they neither fully understood
nor had sufficient preparation to implement. Future studies should
identify the culturally, developmentally, and individually appropriate
practices that support young children's learning in particular
contexts.

Homework assignments have become commonplace, even for
kindergartners in U.S. schools with the expectation that homework is
beneficial to students' learning by developing study habits and
extending their understanding of concepts. For children from
less-advantaged families, completing homework can be problematic when
the resources at home (e.g., computers, knowledgeable adults, and
materials) are scarce or missing altogether. To support these students,
as well as those whose working parents need supervised child care,
afterschool programs were established. Some programs are housed in
elementary and middle schools, while others are held in community
centers and churches. Just as these programs vary in location, their
offerings range from academic support to social activities, such as
sports, clubs, and games, and their staff varies from teachers to
untrained volunteers. Previous research focused on the most essential
components of afterschool homework programs. Huang and Cho build upon
this foundation and investigate the instructional strategies and
techniques from high-functioning homework programs that have led to
higher student academic performance.

Huang and Cho's study was part of the third phase of a larger
national study conducted by the National Center for Research on
Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST) on exemplary
afterschool homework programs. Huang and Cho's sample included the
seven programs selected for their success in improving students'
academic performance and/or program attendance and engagement. The
criteria for selecting each program included being in operation for at
least two years, serving 50 students, and having two sites that used
similar materials or strategies for homework assistance. Most of the
students being served were white, especially in the rural programs, but
African American, Hispanic, Asian, and Native American children were
included, usually in the urban programs. The CRESST instruments used for
data collection included staff and parent surveys, taperecorded and
transcribed interviews, and observation protocols at each of the 14
sites, two from each of the seven exemplary programs. Survey data were
analyzed quantitatively, while the interview responses were analyzed
using CRESST-created codes.

Four common strategies and practices were identified through the
data analysis: 1) homework support, 2) study skills, 3) motivational
strategies, and 4) communication with the day school. Personnel for
homework assistance included teachers, university student tutors,
volunteers, and paid assistants. Some programs offered specialized,
one-to-one assistance for children and others used peer tutors. Among
the study skills were 1) time management and organization, usually in
the form of homework planners; 2) note taking, including outlining; 3)
test preparation, such as practice test, studying notes, and coaching;
and 4) using reference materials appropriately, such as Internet
resources and the more traditional dictionaries and encyclopedias.
Establishing an open, informal environment enabled most programs to
build student motivation, confidence, and willingness to ask questions.
In addition, some programs used local mentoring programs supported by
college sororities and fraternities, incentive/reward programs, and
enrichment activities or clubs, such as Girl/Boy Scouts. While all of
the programs established communication with the day schools to keep
updated on students' progress and needs, the frequency varied
across programs, as did the form of communication--verbal conversations
or daily written homework prescription forms completed by the classroom
teachers.

What are the implications for educators and researchers? First, for
homework programs to effectively increase student achievement, they have
to be well-designed, incorporating the four strategies identified in
this study, which collectively support student independence and promote
positive attitudes toward schooling. Second, effective programs must
have capable, competent staff in sufficient numbers to offer quality
academic support to all of the children attending the program, and the
staff must be responsible for communicating with the day teachers to
ensure that the services being provided meet the students' needs
and the teachers' expectations. Third, motivational strategies to
keep students engaged and finishing their homework should not be
overlooked. In other words, children need to have a tangible reward,
such as the club and social activities, to entice them to invest some
effort and to regularly attend the program. Future studies should
investigate how students perceive the elements of effective homework
programs. What do they perceive as valuable or helpful? What suggestions
do the students have to improve programs' effectiveness? It seems
that we would want to know what the consumers of these programs believe
and perceive, wouldn't we?